Chapter 250

Two boats creeping through the dark under the towed Sky-Net, toward the lanterns of the Gilded Cage at the head of the tow. In the bow of the first, Svala, perched on the stem-post, arm already lit. Behind her: Vigolas, Rougeina, Kompis with Mingus, Krydog, Daniel, Ysel, Smurjan with Trollmage asleep over his shoulder. The second boat full of the Upp Igen's crew.

in the second boat, her right eye patched, the left to the scope. tik.

Svala's line, out of the dark: tsiiiiip — SHHK — the Cage's lantern-yard cut clean and falling. And at the end of her line, high on the mainmast where she'd have slammed in, a blink of silver-rose: Rougeina Swaps with her. Svala lands back in the boat with a thump, where Rougeina was sitting. Rougeina is on the masthead.

dropping off the masthead onto the Cage's deck among a dozen startled net-captains, eight blades fanned.

at a hatch in the middle of the fight, lantern in hand, and no shadow on the planks beneath her in the lantern-light.

Down the ladder after her: Krydog, Kompis, Daniel, Mingus. A hundred candles. Sleeping children. The hundred mirrors. The gilded cage in the middle, Tihi in it. And between them and the cage, Gaff up, a bruise on his young-old face: Nine.

Krydog walking straight at Nine. The Gaff across his face, down, WHUD, up, HUP; across his ribs, and this time it bounces. Krydog walking through it and putting Nine on the floor with one hand, not hard. "Up you get. Later." And taking hold of the gilded cage door and tearing it off its hinges.

inside, bells tied silent with the ribbon, face still. Krydog kneeling in front of her. She can't laugh. She can't say anything much.

looking at the rows of hammocks, the sleeping Flock children, the faint rose haze still rising off them toward an empty chair.

The far door of the Hour-Room opening. In it, Grip, lines at her eyes, the white streak, and as she steps in, a rose glow rising through her skin, years spent, her face drawing back toward thirty, her step quickening. Spring. The Gaff in one hand, the Lace in the other.

stepping between Grip and the open cage. And for the fourth time in five years, drawing the plain sword. Plain steel, held badly, held steady.

asleep over Smurjan's shoulder in the doorway, and on his chest, the amber Gluttony Codex, waking: lifting, lunging for the rose book in the gilt cage at Grip's hip like a cat at a sparrow. A big grey-green violet-script hand closing over it without Trollmage opening his eyes.

(The Codex settles, sulking. Grip takes a full step back from it, one hand over her cage.)

The Lace, flung, opening over Krydog, and closing round him standing: lime, cord, shoulders to knees. He can't fall. He goes rigid.

A fishing jetty below a mountain. A skinny boy of fifteen face-down on the planks, a guard kneeling on his back, a voice: "Stay down and it stops." And out of a grey haze at the end of the jetty, a hand, reaching for him, and he can't reach it.

(Kompis, eyes gold, sees a thread on Krydog that runs out to nothing, flaring like a burn. He says nothing.)

in the net, standing, every muscle locked, bandages straining, eyes wide and raw, the grin gone completely.

watching him, quiet and interested, the rose haze drifting off him into her eyes.

looking at her captain held like that. The one thing in the world she can't stand. Her face, still. Then her hand going to the ribbon round her bells.

tingeling. And Tihi, forcing a laugh out of herself at the least funny thing she has ever seen, and it comes out cracked, ugly, horrible, a laugh with grief stuck in it:

The giggle catching. Rose bubbles into Krydog's balloon. Krydog laughing, sobbing, roaring, all at once, and round him the Lace sagging, plink, and he falls. Flat. WHUD.

ba-BUMP · ba-BUMP. One arc, no hands, coat flaring, out of the slack net. HUP. Grinning with tears all down his face.

Hearing the laugh up close at last. Trying to copy it, eyes wide open, mouth shaping it:

It comes out cracked and thin, an old woman's cackle in a young mouth. At her hip, in its gilt cage, the rose book doesn't stir.

a crack in her calm at last.

Net-captains pouring down both ladders into the Hour-Room. Isa, in the doorway with Kompis's hand on her shoulder, holding the whole crowd on the stair: …ba—. Bror, BRA-DOOM, a wide gold shove sending the front rank back up the other ladder like a wave. BROR: "…Bonk!" Smurjan, through the hull: one Sightline to a seam, one open palm, and a hole in the Cage's side, the sea and the boats right outside it.

all talking at once as Tihi scrambles past them toward the hole.

Out through the hole, into the boats, the Hour-Room filling with Fowlers behind them. Isa letting go, and the Backlog hitting her: she drops to one knee in the boat, both hands on her heart, ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum. Tihi in Krydog's arms, looking back through the hole at the rows of hammocks, the sleeping children still in them.

in the bottom of the boat, ribs aching, and: hic.

Grip at the rail, watching the boats go, the gilt cage in her fist, her Spring spent and the lines back at her eyes, deeper. Above her, filling the sky, the Sky-Net, and hanging in it the island, and on the island three thousand of the Flock, in nets along the rim.

looking up at them all.

(She takes hold of a kite-line, and is hoisted up off the deck, up, up through the dark, toward the woven platform at the very centre of the Sky-Net, where every anchor-line meets and you can see the whole island at once: the Eyrie.)

Grip standing on it, the whole netted island spread out beneath her. Eyes wide open. And looking. At all of them.

From three thousand netted Flock faces, a rose haze rising like mist off a lake at dawn, streaming up into her eyes. And Grip's face, over the long night, growing young: the Arena's lines melting, the white streak going black, forty, thirty, twenty-five. THE GREAT WATCH. On the Wing-Keep below, Tärna, on her feet, bone whistle in her fist.